Forza Horizon 6 Lands in Japan With 550 Cars and a 92 Metacritic, but New Game Pass Tier Rules Lock Essential and Premium Out on Day One

Overview

Forza Horizon 6, the latest entry in Playground Games’ open-world racing series, opens to Premium Edition buyers on May 15 and to all players on May 19, with the festival relocated to a stylized Japan that Xbox Wire describes as featuring “Horizon’s largest ever city” in Tokyo. The launch is the first high-profile test of Microsoft’s October 2025 Game Pass restructure on a flagship first-party title: the game ships day-one on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass only, with the Essential, Premium, and new Starter tiers all locked out at launch, according to Pure Xbox.

Critics have responded warmly. Forza Horizon 6 holds a Metacritic Metascore of 92 on Xbox Series X based on more than 60 critic reviews, with the PC build sitting at 89.

Release and Game Pass eligibility

The game arrives on “Xbox Series X/S, PC and Xbox Cloud on May 19,” with an early-access period “commencing on May 15,” Engadget reports. The same outlet notes that Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios developed the title, that “the standard edition of Forza Horizon 6 is expected to cost $70,” and that “the upcoming title will hit PS5 later this year.” A PS5 release window has not been confirmed.

Xbox Wire describes the game as an “Xbox Play Anywhere title” available on “Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC and Xbox Cloud” and “playable day one with Xbox Game Pass” — without specifying which Game Pass tiers qualify. The tier breakdown comes from secondary outlets reading the fine print. Pure Xbox states plainly that Forza Horizon 6 “will not be available on Game Pass Essential, Premium or the new Starter tier” at launch, and is available only to “PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate members on day one.”

The Forza.net early-access blog corroborates the Ultimate-and-PC-only line in official wording: “Forza Horizon 6’s Standard Edition is available to play with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass at no additional cost, and members can also begin their road-trip in Japan up to four days early by purchasing the Premium Upgrade.”

The Premium Edition early access on May 15 is gated behind a paid purchase. Per the Forza.net blog, “Play Forza Horizon 6 up to four days early with the Premium Edition or Premium Upgrade.” Game Pass subscribers on Ultimate or PC Game Pass can also buy the standalone Premium Upgrade to access the four-day head start.

A Japan-set map with one notable omission

The game features “over 550 real-world cars” at launch, according to Xbox Wire. Engadget’s launch coverage describes the map as a first for the series: “Forza Horizon 6 is taking the racing series to Japan for the first time,” and “this version of Tokyo, for instance, is said to be five times larger than any urban area the studio has built before.”

TechRadar cites “the Daikoku Parking Area, the C1 loop, and yes, even Mt. Haruna where you can attempt intense touge race battles” among the touring locations recreated, alongside “Tokyo Tower and the Shibuya Scramble.” The reviewer adds that the map runs “from Tokyo City to the Japanese Alps and the gorgeous countryside and quaint little villages dotted in-between.”

Mt. Fuji, prominent in pre-launch marketing, is visible in-game but not playable. “The only glaring omission I can think of is Mt. Fuji,” TechRadar writes. “It does loom in the background, looking mightily impressive, but you can’t actually go there in-game.” Engadget’s preview similarly observed that the massive snowdrifts in the alpine zone served as “steadfast barriers” the reviewer could not breach.

The Game Pass tier question

The more consequential structural story around the launch is which subscribers can play it under their existing monthly plan. Ultimate and PC Game Pass currently cost the prices set by Microsoft’s April 21, 2026 reduction — the first concrete consumer-facing move by gaming CEO Asha Sharma — as previously reported. Those prices, $22.99 monthly for Ultimate and $13.99 for PC Game Pass, were paired with a change that pushed future Call of Duty titles off day-one Game Pass. Forza Horizon 6 is, by contrast, retained on day one for the top tier.

The Premium tier, formerly known as Game Pass Standard before the October 2025 rebrand, sits in a structural middle ground. Pure Xbox’s October 2025 overhaul article reports that Premium offers “over 200 games, new Xbox-published games within a year of launch” — meaning Premium subscribers will not be eligible for Forza Horizon 6 until that window elapses. Essential, the renamed Core tier, retains its $9.99 monthly price but does not include first-party day-one launches.

Microsoft framed the October 2025 changes as a transition that would happen automatically. According to Pure Xbox, Microsoft said at the time that “Today’s Game Pass Core subscribers will automatically move to Essential, Standard subscribers will transition to Premium, and Ultimate subscribers will remain in the Ultimate plan.” The carryover from Standard to Premium kept the $14.99 monthly price unchanged but inherited the one-year delay on first-party content that Standard already had.

The practical effect on May 19 is that a former Standard subscriber who was migrated to Premium would need to either upgrade to Ultimate or wait — under the policy described by Pure Xbox, up to a year — before Forza Horizon 6 becomes available on their plan.

Critical reception

PC Gamer’s review by Phil Savage, published May 14, scored the game 84 with the subtitle “Riding a well-worn track.” The 92 Metacritic average on Xbox Series X, per the Metacritic listing, places Forza Horizon 6 in the same universal-acclaim band the series has occupied across previous entries. The 89 PC score reflects a wider critical spread, in part driven by performance observations multiple reviewers raised at lower quality presets.

TechRadar praised the geographic spread, describing “a ton of brilliant environmental design to marvel at” across the map’s mix of urban, rural, and alpine zones.

How the launch fits the new tier policy

The access pattern visible at launch — Ultimate and PC Game Pass on day one, Premium delayed up to a year, Essential and Starter excluded — matches the structure Microsoft described when it announced the October 2025 overhaul, per Pure Xbox. The Call of Duty deferral that accompanied the April price cut had separated one franchise from day-one Game Pass on every tier; Forza Horizon 6 is the contrasting case, where day-one access is preserved for Ultimate while being withheld from cheaper plans.

What we don’t know

• Microsoft has not disclosed subscriber breakdowns across Ultimate, Premium, Essential, and Starter, so the share of subscribers affected by the day-one lockout is not public.
• The PlayStation 5 release date for Forza Horizon 6 has been confirmed only as “later this year,” with no specific window from Xbox Game Studios.
• No first-week sales figures have been released for the Standard, Deluxe, or Premium editions.
• Whether Premium subscribers will receive Forza Horizon 6 closer to or farther than 12 months after launch — and whether expansions are bundled when it arrives — has not been confirmed by Microsoft.